How a California Kitten Won His Way to Boston

ByStaffJune 22, 1998

Monitor photographer Melanie Stetson Freeman was driving down a four-lane road on a California visit when she spied a black-and-white object in the road. It was a kitten. He was waving his head back and forth wildly, too terrified to move. She braked quickly. But by the time she got out of the car, the kitten had disappeared! The driver behind her had stopped, too. He'd seen the kitten climb up under Ms. Freeman's car. The other driver crawled under her car and extricated the animal. It was a polydactyl kitten, one that has extra digits on its front and back paws.

Freeman took the animal back to her mother-in-law's house, where she and her husband were staying. She fully intended to find a home for it locally. But when the kitten spent the night huddled next to her, she had to bring him home.